BOOSTER SHOTS: Oddities, musings and news from the health world

Starbucks' trenta follows the wrong trend, experts say

Trenta is the new 31-ounce drink size from Starbucks. The drink may be an excellent form of product marketing but it's a terrible form of nutrition, say weight-loss experts.

Dr. Jessica Bartfield of Loyola University Health System in Chicago is among the experts who say that the trenta encourages people to consume even larger portions of foods instead of scaling back. Large portion sizes is one of the reasons why so many Americans battle their weight, Bartfield said Monday in a news release.

People who trade up to a trenta could add 200 calories a day to their diets, depending on whether they order the Tazo shaken iced tea, iced tea lemonaid or iced coffee. An extra 200 calories a day, Bartfield warned, will result in a weight gain of 2 pounds per month.

Not to mention extra caffeine. A normal cup of coffee is 6 to 8 ounces. So the trenta will be about four to five times that amount.

Diet and nutrition bloggers have been warning people about indulging in mega-drinks, which often contain sneaky, empty calories. "Dunkin' Donuts has been serving a 32-ounce coffee for years. But that doesn’t make the trenta any less frightening," said the blogger Truth In Slimming.

Canada's National Post published a graphic showing that the trenta holds more liquid than the average person's stomach.